Drug WarRant

In case you don’t read Radley Balko on a regular basis… which you should.

The Baltimore Sun reported on the use of SWAT in Maryland.

Heavily armed tactical police in Prince George’s County raid more homes than any other law enforcement agency in the state, according to newly released data from the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention.

In the last six months of 2009, police there conducted 195 tactical entries, 105 involving crime deemed nonserious felonies and misdemeanors. That’s compared with 84 such raids in Baltimore

This was the subject of Radley’s crime column this week: 4.5 SWAT Raids Per Day: Maryland’s SWAT transparency bill produces its first disturbing results

Worse even than those dreary numbers is the fact that more than half of the county’s SWAT deployments were for misdemeanors and nonserious felonies. That means more than 100 times last year Prince George’s County brought state-sanctioned violence to confront people suspected of nonviolent crimes. And that’s just one county in Maryland. These outrageous numbers should provide a long-overdue wake-up call to public officials about how far the pendulum has swung toward institutionalized police brutality against its citizenry, usually in the name of the drug war. […]

Lawmakers in other states should take notice. It’s time to have a national discussion on the wisdom of sending phalanxes of cops dressed like soldiers into private homes in search of nonviolent and consensual crimes.

The Baltimore Sun article also led to this:

Ex-Cop Chides Calvo for Questioning the Cops Who Nearly Killed Him

This is an excellent take-down by Radley of a real jerk who had an LTE in the Baltimore Sun this week. This ex-cop attempts to justify all the excess SWAT use and thinks that Cheye Calvo should support it!

Great bit at the end with Radley responding to the ex-cop:

Perhaps if Mayor Calvo had ever had to face such danger he would understand.

Schweinsburg saves his most callous, oblivious comment for last. Calvo has faced such danger. He faced it when a bunch of armed idiots stormed his house and indiscriminately fired off rounds into his Labradors. He thought he was being invaded. If he’d had a gun in his home for self protection, he’d almost certainly be dead. That the danger in Calvo’s instance came from incompetent cops instead of thuggish drug dealrs wouldn’t have made him any less dead. The utter tone-deafness of this line from Schweinsburg is appalling. How dare this mayor question the cops who nearly killed him. It suggests that all cops, no matter what they do, should be immune from public scrutiny. It’s similar to a letter in response to Calvo’s case from a Milwaukee cop that we saw in National Review a while back. No empathy whatsoever. You get the feeling they believe Calvo ought to thank the Prince George’s deputies for having the courtesy not to kill him.

Of course, when it comes to SWAT, any amount of violence is OK because it’s the “law” doing it, whereas something like having a little marijuana is considered “dangerous.”

In this case that Radley talked about last week, a SWAT team descended on a home, stormed it with guns, fired seven rounds at the family’s dogs as a seven-year old looked on, found a small amount of marijuana, and charged the parents with child endangerment.

So smoking pot = “child endangerment.” Storming a home with guns, then firing bullets into the family pets as a child looks on = necessary police procedures to ensure everyone’s safety.

Just so we’re clear.

It’s bad enough that SWAT seems to think they always have to shoot the dog.

I worked a job for a while that involved going house to house, often cutting across lawns and stumbling into the mean dog on a 20 foot chain right by the side of the house 2 feet away from me. I didn’t have a gun to shoot them, so I learned how to deal with them. There are specific, effective techniques (even if your police department can’t afford a tranq gun, because you spent all your money on tanks and black hoods) that can allow you to proceed without shooting the dog or getting bit. I was able to teach these techniques to minimum wage part-time delivery personnel, so I assume the smarter cops would be able to absorb the lesson as well.

As for this cop? … I don’t know.

A police officer trying to make an arrest at a Minneapolis home shot the neighbor’s dog.

The dog’s owners are angry and confused, but police officials say the officer acted responsibly.

William Knapp said his rottweiler/yellow lab mix Wilson was in his fenced yard, located in the 3200 block of Bryant Avenue N, Friday morning as police tried to arrest someone at at house next door.

Knapp said, “I heard my mom yelling, ‘They shot our dog they shot dog.'”

Knapp’s brother Allen said the dog did not try to attack the officer and wasn’t even barking when it was shot.

Neighbors backed up the Knapps’ version of events. But police said the dog was barking viciously and tried to jump the fence toward the officer.

And there was another case of wrong address drug raid, where a man and his father (who was in bed recovering from cancer treatment) found themselves at the point of a gun, forced to the floor and handcuffed. Police had the wrong half of a duplex. Neighbors now say that the police scraped off the “A” on the house number of one side of the duplex after they made the mistake in order to cover it up. Best line in the video is from the victim:

If the mailman can distinguish that this is two addresses, I’m pretty sure the police could, too.

We’ve been having a fabulous conversation about the meaning/validity of the phrase “marijuana addiction” and how that has been and should be addressed.

Danny Chapin, the managing editor of AllTreatment.com, a directory for drug rehab centers and substance abuse information resource, originally approached me about having a dialog about marijuana addiction with all of you, as he searches for understanding himself.

1. Danny Chapin’s original post
2. Pete Guither’s response

If you haven’t had a chance to read those, I recommend that you do so — the comments were extraordinary — and it leads to this one.

Danny Chapin has now responded to my response. Check it out and take your shots. I’ll react later.
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If any of you thought that it should be easy to change the formula of funding for the drug war, this piece will help demonstrate the sad reality.

Remember when the drug policy budget for 2011 came out? Despite constant messages from the White House and the Drug Czar that the emphasis needs to be on treatment rather than on enforcement, on demand rather than supply, the new budget the unveiled showed increases in every major category of supply-side and enforcement-side drug war with just some shifts within those areas. It’s like they gave in entirely to the lobbying pressures to keep the drug war fully funded even when we’re broke.

And yet, check out the grillinggiven yesterday to the Drug Czar in the House:

At a March 3 hearing of the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) asked, “Were you consulted, Mr. Kerlikowske, or anyone else here, when the administration proposed to cut the Coast Guard positions by 1,100, to mothball five recently upgraded helicopters, reducing the Coast Guard’s anti-drug operations in Florida, where I just happen to live, and the Caribbean – which we just cited was the main source of these people putting this crap in – that would dramatically reduce our nation’s capability? Were you consulted on these cuts?” Mica asked.

“No,” Kerlikowske said. […]

“Actually, both sides of the aisle were just stunned at the administration’s proposal,” Mica said of the proposed cuts. […]

“The Coast Guard is also stretched thin – responsible for carrying out a range of missions, from port security to disaster response, drug smuggling interdiction, and the protection of our maritime resources,” Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said at the Feb. 24 hearing where Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified about the budget.

I hate to be right, but, in my initial post on the budget, I said:

Because there are so many entrenched interests in law enforcement, well organized interests with lobbyists and guns, that nothing can ever be cut. The only question when this bill reaches Congress is how much they try to increase the law enforcement/supply side numbers.

Yep.

… says absolutely nothing.

Inroads made in drug war, panel told

The last two decades have seen a strengthening global resolve to address the issue of drug production, trafficking and use, Kerlikowske testified during a hearing of the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

What does that mean?

Time to clean out the deadwood and eliminate the ONDCP.

Here’s an outstanding news piece covering the situation with Constable David Bratzer reported here yesterday.

The coverage is a real breath of fresh air.

Link

GUATEMALA CITY – Authorities arrested Guatemala’s anti-drug czar and national police chief Tuesday in a case involving stolen cocaine and slain police, acting just two days before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrives to discuss the drug war.

Oops.

The Victoria BC Police Department, an organization that should be known for its bravery, exhibited a rather extreme act of cowardice recently.

David Bratzer, who volunteers with the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) while off-duty, has been ordered not to speak at an official City of Victoria-sponsored event on harm reduction scheduled for this Wednesday, March 3 at 7:00 P.M.

Even though the event is scheduled outside of his regular work hours, management from the Victoria Police Department, without Bratzer’s knowledge, informed city staff that he was being withdrawn from speaking. Then on February 24, a senior officer at the department directly ordered Bratzer not to participate in the event.

In response to these developments, Bratzer stated: “I will not be attending this event, but I would like to thank the City of Victoria for the invitation to be part of an honest and open discussion about harm reduction. I will try to find other venues to present my views about drug policy.”

Upon learning of the department’s order, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association filed a complaint with the Victoria Police Board.

Bratzer has always taken pains to state that his opinions are his own and do not reflect the views of his employer. He has participated in a number of credible venues related to drug policy during the past year, including delivering testimony to the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in Ottawa (video available from LEAP).

“The voices of front-line officers who are charged with enforcing the drug laws are incredibly important to the public debate on drug policy issues,” said Jack Cole, a retired American undercover narcotics detective who serves as executive director for LEAP. “Preventing an officer from sharing his firsthand perspective about the harms of our current drug laws with policymakers is a disservice to the entire democratic process.”

Action Alert: LEAP has a petition to show your support for cops like David.

Here is the BC Civil Liberties Association press release:

The BCCLA is concerned that the Victoria Police Department is taking an unduly punitive and anti-free speech position without justification. […] Where an off-duty communication by a member is a critique or endorsement of government or department policy, and it is not stated or implied in that communication that the member is unable or unwilling to enforce the law impartially and according to his or her statutory and professional duties, it is inappropriate for a police department to interfere with that communication.

It’s fear, pure and simple. This action by the Police Department isn’t about policy, or about protecting the reputation of the department. It’s about fearing the message. Period.

We’re a scary bunch. ‘Cause we bring facts that upset the apple cart.

We’ve talked so many times here about the death of the Fourth Amendment, particularly in the war on drugs. It has been trashed over and over again from every direction.

We haven’t talked much about “plain view.” Plain view is the notion that if an officer sees something illegal sitting out in plain view, it’s perfectly OK for him to charge you with it. So, if you’ve been robbed and you invite a police officer into your home to show him that your piggy bank was broken open, and there are twelve severed heads on the counter, the officer isn’t required to ignore them — they are in plain view and now you’re going to be charged with some heinous crime.

However, that’s not how plain view normally works. Officers work hard to get themselves into position where they can see as much as possible in an attempt to go fishing.

Terry v. Ohio, followed by Michigan v. Long, allowed police to pat people down, and even do a routine search of a car in certain situations for the safety of the officer to insure that there are no weapons present. (I wonder how often people detained by officers are able to dive back into their car and grab a weapon.) Of course, if they find drugs, well, that just happened to be in plain view, while they were searching for tiny guns which might be hidden inside film canisters [is that a dated reference?].

If you open the door to your house when police knock and they see something illegal through the open door (or through your window), they can act.

Just this past month, the 9th Circuit made a particularly bad ruling in United States v. Lemus, holding that when police arrested a man outside his house, the police had the authority to sweep inside the house to make sure there was nothing there to endanger them!

Thanks to Fourth Amendment.com, we give you the powerful words in dissent of Chief Judge Kozinski…
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In the last post, I was trying to describe the INCB – The independent and quasi-judicial control organ monitoring the implementation of the United Nations drug control conventions.

Here’s another way of looking at it.

A lot of you are too young to remember this, but there was a charlatan named Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple back in 1978. He was a dangerous cult figure. On November 18, in Jonestown, Guyana, the entire cult committed mass suicide, drinking cyanide-laced grape-flavored “Kool-Aid.” 909 died, 276 of them children. Not all were willing. Core members made sure all “participated.”

…

The U.N. drug control conventions are the suicide pact. The drug war is the cyanide-laced grape-flavored Kool-Aid. The INCB are the folks that make sure everyone “participates.”

Good news from Cheye Calvo:

Yesterday, District Court Judge Ahalt yesterday denied a motion to dismiss our lawsuit against the Pr. George’s law enforcement. This clears the path for us to go to trial, probably early in 2011. He also denied a motion to suppress the Sheriff’s Office internal affairs division (IAD) report, which cleared his agency of any wrong-doing.

That’s wonderful. This next part will make you sick.

The county actually asked the judge to remove Sheriff Deputy Sagin (the second shooter) from the count related to the execution of Payton and Chase. The reason was that Sagin twice shoot Payton in the head, but AFTER he was already fatally wounded — and therefore was incapable of causing further destruction of property (he actually said this). Judge Ahalt said no.

Can you use an extra 48 billion dollars? Jeffrey Mirron has the latest estimates on savings due to legalization. Taxes would be extra.

Another reason for legalization: Drugs need to have ingredients listed on the package.

Colorado Congressman Fights Back Against DEA’s Medical Marijuana Raids Excellent job by Colorado Congressman Jared Polis. He needs to be rewarded by the voters for sending this letter.

In drug war, failed old ideas never die: Bernd Debusmann. Good column on the recent nonsense from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) that’s been in the news.

If you’ve been wondering who the INCB is and what power they have, it’s certainly a curious thing.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is the independent and quasi-judicial control organ monitoring the implementation of the United Nations drug control conventions.

Yep, it’s an independent and quasi-judicial control organ. Sounds like something hidden behind the large intestine.

DrugSense Weekly – a weekly review of the most interesting or relevant articles in the press and on the web related to drug policy reform.

Drug War Chronicle – weekly update of drug war news and analysis from Stop the Drug War.org.